Theory of Everything's Eddie Redmayne was 'nervous' meeting Stephen Hawking

Eddie Redmayne stars as the renowned physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking in the new movie The Theory of Everything.

Redmayne, who is already getting Oscar buzz for his performance, was previously best-known for his roles in the musical film Les Misérables and the TV mini-series The Pillars of the Earth.

• Oscar buzz for Eddie Redmayne's portrayal of Stephen Hawking

In the above video Redmayne describes the daunting task of playing one of the most brilliant men alive. Hawking, who has a motor neuron disease related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is the author of A Brief History of Time and has done ground breaking research into the nature of black holes, among other subjects.

 "I basically spent five or six months reading everything and watching as many documentaries as I could," the 32-year-old English actor told CBC News when he was in Canada for the world premiere of the film at the Toronto International Film Festival.  

"Then five days before filming I was lucky enough to meet him. I basically was so nervous I just vomited forth information about Stephen Hawking to Stephen Hawking. He just sat there and took it and was like, 'Yeah I know. I am me.'"

Redmayne added with a laugh, "But I recovered after a while and was slightly less nervous and he was so generous."

Based on best-selling memoir

The film, based on the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen by Jane Hawking, is a romantic biographical film that spends more time on the relationship between Stephen Hawking and his first wife (played by Felicity Jones) than on complex scientific concepts.

Redmayne portrays Hawking as he transforms from a carefree young Cambridge student to a man increasingly affected by the onset of ALS.

The film has been earning very positive advance reviews. But for Redmayne the toughest, and perhaps most important audience, was when producers screened the film for Stephen Hawking himself.

"The greatest thing is when he saw the film," Redmayne recalled. "We'd used an approximation of his iconic voice when we were filming and after he saw the film he actually gave us the copyright to his voice to use. That for me was the most wonderful compliment."

The Theory of Everything opens in Toronto on Friday and other Canadian cities later in the month.